He descends so convincingly and so sequentially, that it feels real and terrifying. He has a similar character arc in the 1954 film, A Star isBorn. Both characters have moments of lucidity; as when the mirror cracks and he is confronted with his fractured state and in the other film, when he checks into a sanatorium.
But, in both stories, his self destruction is mostly dismissed, until the end, when he becomes fully aware of the destruction he has wrought.
